Contextual Related Posts plugin for WordPress

Overview:

Display a list of contextually related posts for the current post.

You can select the number of posts to display and if you want to automatically display the related posts in your content / feed.

Now, you can choose to exclude posts from certain categories as well as exclude pages.

Features:

Display Related Posts automatically in content / feed, no need to edit template files
Doesn’t require the post to be tagged in order to display related posts
You can manually add code to your template where you want the related posts to be displayed
Exclude posts from categories
Exclude display of related posts on Pages
Exclude links pages in Related Posts list
Find related posts based on content and post title

Installing

Download Contextual Related Posts.
Extract the contents of contextual-related-posts.zip to wp-content/plugins/ folder. You should get a folder called contextual-related-posts.
Activate the Plugin in WP-Admin.
Goto Options > Related Posts to configure.

Options:

Below is a screenshot of the default options available.

If you disable automatic display of related posts please add <?php if(function_exists('echo_ald_crp')) echo_ald_crp(); ?> to your template file where you want the related posts to be displayed.

ChangeLog:

1.6.3
- Fixed: The plugin will now display a list of changes in the WordPress Admin > Plugins area whenever an update is available
1.6.2
- Turned the credit option to false by default. This setting won’t effect current users.
- Turned off borders on post thumbnails. You can customise the CSS class “crp_thumb” to style the post thumbnail
- From the next version, the plugin will display update information in your WP-Admin
1.6.1
- Fixed: Custom output was not detecting styles properly
- Fixed: Incorrect XHTML code was being generated when using special characters in the post title
1.6
- New: The plugin extracts the first image in the post and displays that if the post thumbnail and the post-image meta field is missing
- New: Display excerpts in the list
- New: Credit link to the CRP page added. You can choose to turn this off, though I would appreciate if you leave it on.
- Updated: All parts of the list are now wrapped in classes for easy CSS customisation
1.5.2
- Fixed: Display of thumbnails using postmeta
1.5.1
- Fixed: Numeric options were not being saved correctly
1.5
- Added an Option to display post thumbnails
- The output can be completely customised now
1.4.2
- Fixed: Using doublequotes in the title would mess up the screen
- Fixed: Errors when the mySQL index was being regenerated
1.4.1
- Added Italian language
- Minor fix for text in the admin page
1.4
- Added complete localization support
- Added button to recreate the mySQL FULLTEXT index
1.3.1 – Fixed bug that didn’t blank out posts even when option was selected
1.3
- Better optimization in WP-Admin area.
- Fixed compatibility problems with Simple Tags plugin
- Fixed large number of queries being generated
1.2.2 – Minor bug fixed about limit of posts
1.2.1 – Fixed a minor bug that caused compatiblity problems with PHP4
1.2
- Option to blank output in case nothing is found
- Exclude posts from certain categories
- Exclude pages in list of related posts
- Option to choose if you want related posts to be displayed on pages
1.1.1 – Now you can optionally choose if you want to use the post content to search for related posts
1.1 – Fixed MySQL index key conflicts by using a more unique index key name.
1.0.1 – Release

To Do:

Comment below and tell me what you would like to see added to this plugin

Downloads

Current Version is 1.6.3

Download Contextual Related Posts

Writing and testing plugins takes a good amount of time. If you like the plugin and find it useful and would like to donate something for my work please do click the Paypal Donate button below. The payment is secure. I haven’t filled in any amount. Feel free to donate what you please. Any amount is welcome. Thank you

License

All files and their contents are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Questions or Bugs

Known Bugs

If you have any questions or would like to report any bugs then please use the support forum.

Download Contextual Related Posts
Number of downloads: 44,349
Rating: 5/5
Page on WP Extend

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72 Responses to “ Contextual Related Posts plugin for WordPress ”

Comments:

Robert@PNG says:

March 10, 2009 at 4:26 am

Hi,

Really glad that I found this plugin as the Related Posts plugin that I was using is no longer supported by the author.

If you are open to suggestions – I do have one point for improvement….

The algorithm used to select related posts could do with some improvement and it would be really nice to see some additional options to influence the selection of related posts.

R
- Ajay says:
  
  March 10, 2009 at 3:38 pm
  
  What kind of improvements are you suggesting? Also, what additional options would you like to see?
  - Robert@PNG says:
    
    March 10, 2009 at 7:15 pm
    
    Ajay,
    
    Thanks for responding…
    
    One of the reasons the “Related Posts” plugin from the other author was/is so popular is that he gave the plugin user several settings for fine-tuning the “related-ness” feature. Also, it seems to have a greater success at finding “very” related posts.
    
    Something else that would be nice would be to have an easy way of tailoring the display of the related post itself eg: date, author, excerpt etc…
    
    Are you planning on “evolving” this plugin?
    
    A tip… current users of the “other” plugin will slowly start to jump ship (so to speak) if the author remains AWOL for much longer. These folks will potentially be seeking a similar plugin and expect equal or better features.
    
    R
    - Ajay says:
      
      March 10, 2009 at 11:16 pm
      
      Sounds good… can you point me to the “other” plugin or else if you’re more comfortable, send me an email
      - Robert@PNG says:
        
        March 11, 2009 at 4:03 am
        
        A,
        
        No probs…
        
        Rob Marsh’s “Similar Posts” plugin at:
        http://rmarsh.com/plugins/similar-posts/
        
        R
Sunil says:

March 12, 2009 at 9:46 pm

I have added this to my blog myhtmlworld.com seems very useful. Thanks
- Ajay says:
  
  March 13, 2009 at 1:04 am
  
  Great! Do check out my other plugins.
Joe says:

April 1, 2009 at 5:42 am

Ajay,

I like the idea of the plugin, and it seems to be working for a lot of people. Im probably missing something insanely easy. I installed it, activated it, checked the settings, but nothing appears to be different on my blog? Is there a specific way I need to insert it in each post? Thanks for your time!

Joe
- Ajay says:
  
  April 1, 2009 at 9:35 am
  
  Check the manual instructions under options above.
  - Joe says:
    
    April 1, 2009 at 10:55 pm
    
    Ajay, thanks, read over above. So even though I didn’t disable anything, I need to put it into the template to display it after each blog post? Just wanted to double check!
    - Ajay says:
      
      April 1, 2009 at 11:06 pm
      
      Yup… in the loop, just after the the_content portion

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